Maybe that’s true since the Mavericks would be well within their rights to take their schedule for this season into the nearest throne room and flush it.

Their upcoming victory lap as NBA champions is going to be more like a frantic dash from city to city with no time to stop and smell the roses. And by the way, Mavericks fans won’t get to see the Rose (Derrick, that is), either, since the reigning MVP won’t be visiting Dallas.

The Mavericks are scheduled for 20 — yes, 20 — back-to-back sets of games this season.

And that doesn’t include the three games in three nights they will play in March.

That’s 43 of the 66 games this season that will be condensed into the briefest of time frames.

For comparison, the Mavericks had 20 back-to-back sets last season in a full 82-game schedule.

The NBA said it was squeezing a 66-game schedule into a smaller period of time. But it’s not that much of a shorter span.

The opener is on Christmas Day against Miami. The regular season ends on April 26.

That’s 124 days, which is nearly two days for every game that must be played in the shortened season.

Last season, the 82 games were spread over 169 days, which provides a little more wiggle room, but not much. So why are three games in three nights required?

For years, we’ve heard that the NBA product is weakened when played on back-to-back nights. And certainly it is further downgraded when that dreaded scheduling demon — four games in five nights — crops up.

So now we get three consecutive nights of games?

And five games in six nights for the Mavericks starting on March 5?

In five different cities?

That’s equal parts unbelievable and ridiculous.

Coaches will no doubt consider their options in these situations.

Older teams — and the Mavericks clearly are that — would be well within their rights to sit their heavy lifters during one game during those grueling stretches.

That, of course, robs fans who may only see the Mavericks once this season of not getting to watch Dirk Nowitzki or Jason Kidd.

It’s true that there are many variables at work in making an NBA schedule, especially when it has to be reworked to accommodate the lockout.

But these days, arenas have conversions from hockey to basketball down to an art form.

There would have been nothing wrong with playing some afternoon games on weekends.

And, of course, the NBA still found a way to stick a weeklong All-Star break in the middle of the season.

The other side of this argument is that these are the best athletes in the world and a busy work schedule comes with the territory. And some players would rather have it that way.

“When you don’t have basketball for as long as we did, I don’t care if we play every day,” Jason Terry said.

That’s the way athletes are. They’d rather compete in games every day because it cuts way down on tedious practice time.

But that practice time makes for better basketball, something we won’t be seeing as much of this season.

Plan B possibilities: The Mavericks are working on contingency plans if key free agents Tyson Chandler, Caron Butler and J.J. Barea move on to other teams, which is becoming more and more likely.

One player on the radar is Jeff Foster, the 6-11 center-power forward who has spent his career with the Indiana Pacers, including a few years playing for coach Rick Carlisle when he was leading the Pacers.

Foster is a free agent and has been a functional big man, particularly in terms of rebounding and playing hard-nosed defense.